Chapter 15c

The very next day, Darren was destined to find out about that price. After less than twenty-four hours of stalemate in the Darren vs. Charlie issue, the Mexican standoff, as Pauline called it, was broken.

Jake's first inkling of the issue's possible resolution came at just after eight that morning. He was under the covers and snoring in his bed, still sleeping off the eleven Coronas and eight bonghits of the night before. Suddenly, someone was pounding on his door. He tried to ignore it and stay safely asleep but the pounding was continuous, insistent.

"All right, all right!" he finally yelled as the last vestiges of unconsciousness were driven forcibly away. "Stop that knocking!"

The knocking stopped.

Jake stared at the door for a few seconds, his eyes trying to adjust to the light, his heart pounding uncomfortably fast in his chest, his head throbbing distantly with a hangover headache. "Who in the hell is it?" he asked.

The door creaked open a foot or so and Elsa's head poked through. "Sorry to wake you, Mr. Kingsley," she said, "but you have a visitor."

"A visitor?" he barked, the throb in his head picking up a little as he did so. "I'm asleep, Elsa. I'm not expecting anyone. Tell whoever it is to leave a message and come back later."

"It's Mr. Cooper, Jake," Elsa told him. "He insists upon talking to you as soon as possible."

"Coop?" Jake asked.

"He seems very agitated about something. I thought it might be important."

Jake rubbed his temples a few times and then sat up, the sheet falling away from his bare chest. "Okay," he said, still trying to clear his head. "Put him in the dining room and tell him I'll be in as soon as I get some clothes on. Is there coffee made?"

Elsa looked insulted. "Of course," she said stiffly. "I just brewed a pot of Costa Rican breakfast blend."

"Right," Jake said. "I think I can smell it now. I'll be down in a few minutes. Why don't you see if Coop wants to stay for breakfast?"

"I'll do so," she said. "What would you like?"

"Oatmeal, coffee, and some juice will do me. Coop would probably dig some of that eggs Benedict you make."

"Right away, Mr. Kingsley," she said. The door shut and he heard her footsteps go tromping off down the hall.

It was actually closer to ten minutes before Jake was able to pull himself out of bed, stagger to the bathroom to relieve his straining bladder, and pull on a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt. He went to the bar in his bedroom suite and poured a large glass of ice water. He drank it down without taking the glass from his lips, refilled it, and used half of the second glass to wash down a couple of Tylenol, a Vitamin C tablet, and a vitamin B-12 tablet — all of which were kept in ready supply in this location. He debated brushing his teeth for a moment but decided that it could wait until after breakfast.

He made his way downstairs and found Coop sitting at the dining room table, as instructed, sipping on a cup of Elsa's coffee. Coop looked tired and more than a little hungover himself. His eyes had bags under them and were moderately bloodshot. It appeared he hadn't shaved in at least two days. He was wearing a pair of shorts and a tank top with a pair of flip-flops on his feet.

"Wassup, Coop?" Jake asked as he sat down at the table across from him.

"Hey, Jake," he mumbled. "Sorry I got you outta bed so early, but I needed to talk to you."

"Okay," Jake said.

Elsa appeared, carrying a cup of steaming, aromatic coffee and another glass of ice water. She set them down in front of Jake.

"Thanks, Elsa," he said.

"Did you take your Tylenol and your vitamins?" she asked him.

"Yes, I did," he confirmed.

"Very good," she said. "Mr. Cooper has elected to go with the oatmeal and some toast for breakfast instead of the eggs Benedict. Will you be requiring anything else?"

"Nothing at the moment, thank you."

She nodded and made herself scarce.

Jake took a sip of the coffee and then chased it with another large slug of ice water. He looked up at Coop. "So what's up?" he asked.

"I been doing a lot of thinking," Coop said.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Coop confirmed. "Thinking about this whole fucked up Darren and Charlie thing."

"I think we've all been doing a lot of thinking about that," Jake said. "Do you have an idea how to resolve it?"

Coop nodded. "Yeah," he said, and then said nothing more.

Jake waited for almost thirty seconds before saying, "So what's your idea, Coop?"

Coop sighed. "That ain't all that's been on my mind, you know?"

"Uh... no, I didn't know," Jake said.

"Pauline's your sister and all, so I'm sure she's already told you about... you know?"

Jake didn't know. He did not, in fact, have the slightest idea what Coop was talking about, nor did he really care at this particular moment. He wanted to hear what Coop had to say on the Darren vs. Charlie subject because if it were what he was hoping Coop would say, the issue would indeed be a long way toward being solved. But, like always, diplomacy was necessary in situations like this. "Pauline has not told me anything about you, Coop."

Coop looked at him as if he didn't believe him. "Oh really?"

"Really," Jake said. "Or at least if she did, it must not be memorable, because I don't know what it is you're referring to."

"She didn't tell you about the paternity suit?" Coop said.

Jake's eyes widened. No, she most definitely had not mentioned anything about that. "Paternity suit against who?" he asked. "Against you?"

"She really didn't tell you?"

"She really didn't tell me," Jake assured him. "Did someone name you in a paternity suit?"

Coop slumped forward a little and took a big slug out of his coffee. "Yeah," he said. "Some bitch I fucked last year says I knocked her up. She has a three-month old kid now and she filed suit against me last week."

This was actually enough to make Jake forget about the Darren vs. Charlie issue — at least for the moment. "Do you know this chick?" he asked. "Are you sure you fucked her?"

This might have seemed a strange question for most men — even the most amorous usually remembered those they'd had relationships with in the past year — but, for a rock star, it really wasn't. All five members of Intemperance had had sex with so many women in the course of their careers that they literally would not be able to look at any one woman and be able to say for sure if they'd been with her or not. But Coop apparently did remember. He nodded his head as soon as the question was out of Jake's mouth. "I'm sure," he said.

"Was she someone you banged more than once?"

"Yeah," Coop said. "I met her at Flamingo right after we got home from the Book tour. She's a junior investment banker or some shit like that. She was a really hot bitch with these big fake titties. You know how I like the big fake titties?"

"Yeah," Jake said. "I know how you like that."

"So I fucked her for about a week or so before I got tired of her and told her to hit the fuckin' highway. She went pretty peacefully. They don't always, you know."

"Yeah," Jake said. "That's the truth."

"Anyway, about the third or fourth day that I was fuckin' her... well... there was an accident."

"An accident?"

Coop shook his head in disgust and then hung it low. "I thought I'd finally found the perfect brand of condom," he said. "I had just bought me some of them lambskin ones, the ones that are supposed to be so thin you can hardly feel them. I put one on and I was slamming her on my living room couch and it started to feel really good. I was like, yeah! It really felt like I wasn't wearing anything at all, you know? Only, after I finished and pulled my shit out of her... well... I really wasn't wearing anything at all. The fuckin' thing had come off inside of her right after we started."

"Oh shit," Jake said.

"I had to go in and dig it out of her, man!" Coop said. "That was some gross shit!"

Jake winced a little. The image of Coop digging it out of her did not blend well with his hangover. He took a large sip of his coffee. "Yeah, I'm sure that was pretty gross all right. So what happened next? Did she ever tell you she was pregnant?"

He shook his head. "She never said shit. I never heard from her again until last week when I got served with the fuckin' paternity suit. The bitch is asking for twelve thousand dollars a month in child support! Twelve fucking thousand bucks! And that's only if I voluntarily give up all parental rights. If I want to have a relationship with this fuckin' kid, she wants twenty-five grand a month."

Jake whistled. That was pretty steep. "So I'm assuming by your questions of a few minutes ago that you talked to Pauline about this?"

"Yeah," he said. "She told me that if the kid is really mine I'm pretty much screwed. She also told me that with the accuracy of these paternity tests they've got these days there's probably no way the bitch's lawyer would've filed suit if she didn't really think it was mine. Not only that, everything matches up. It's all detailed in the lawsuit forms. The week I was banging her matches up perfectly when you compare it with the day the kid was born."

"And did she say why she didn't tell you about this?"

"She said she didn't want to be involved with me anymore and was hoping that I would never find out about the kid."

"But..." Jake said.

"But," Coop said, "she's run into some financial shit over the past few months. She can't work as much as she needs to and pay for childcare and all that shit. Someone told her that the father is responsible for helping to support the child and that's when she decided to file suit on my ass. Ain't that some fucked up shit, Jake?"

"I suppose you could look at it that way," Jake said. "But whether it's fucked up or not is irrelevant. Did Pauline set you up with a lawyer who deals with this sort of thing?"

Coop nodded. "She did," he said. "I'm supposed to meet with him tomorrow morning at ten o'clock."

"That's good," Jake said.

Coop was shaking his head in disbelief. "I still can't get over this, man," he said. "I've had me a couple thousand bitches in my time and never had a fuckin' rubber break or come off or had a bitch try to steal it or anything. And then the one time there's an accident — the one fucking time — the bitch gets knocked up. What are the fuckin' odds?"

Jake shrugged. "I'm sure Nerdly probably has exact figures on that, but I'd say about one in fourteen with all things being random."

"Is that all?" Coop said, appalled. "Doesn't being careful all these years count for nothin'?"

"Not when you're firing live sperm into a fertile womb without protection," Jake told him.

"Man," Coop said, slumping down again.

"I feel for you, man," Jake told him. "And I'm sure you're lawyer will be smart enough to tell you not to agree to anything before the results of the paternity test are in."

"Yeah, Pauline already told me that."

"So keep the faith. Maybe it's not really your kid after all."

"Yeah, maybe," Coop said, although he didn't look too hopeful about this.

"So anyway," Jake said, "what does all of this have to do with Darren and Charlie? I didn't quite catch what the connection was."

Coop looked at him as if he were an idiot. "The connection," he said, "is that I'm gonna be paying out twelve fucking grand a month for the next eighteen years."

"Assuming it's your kid," Jake said. "What about it?"

"What about it?" Coop said. "You guys are talking about going breach of contract and letting National sue us! You're talking about them taking all the money we already have away from us just because you and Matt both have to have your fuckin' way on this thing."

"I really don't think it will go that far, Coop," Jake said.

"If someone doesn't give in it will," Coop said. "You ain't gonna change your position and vote for Darren, are you?"

"No," Jake said. "I think that would be detrimental to the band and a big mistake. I've already put my views on this out on the table."

"The fuckin' table," Coop grunted miserably. "Matt's got his views out on that fuckin' table too. He wants Charlie gone and Darren back as much as you want the opposite. He'll never change his mind either. Both of you motherfuckers are willing to destroy this band and bankrupt us all just to prove who's got the biggest fucking dick!"

"Well... we've all seen each other's dicks before," Jake said, "and anyway, this issue is about much more than that. It's about what's best for the band."

"What's best for the band?" Coop said bitterly. "You think that destroying the band and bankrupting everyone in the process just because you two ego-fucking-maniacs can't come to an agreement on something is what's best for the band?"

Jake had to admit — somewhat guiltily — that Coop had a point there. Was this all about an internal power struggle that was transcending the issue in question? Wouldn't it be better for the band if Jake were to simply give in and allow Darren to return? Maybe. But wouldn't it also be much better for the band if Matt were the one to do that?

"Okay," Jake said slowly. "I will admit that you make a lot of sense on that one, but I'm afraid I'm not going to change my position if that's what you came here to try to convince me to do. Darren has used up all of his second chances. Charlie — as weird a motherfucker as he is — has proven himself to be the better choice. Matt feels he owes loyalty to Darren and I feel I owe it to Charlie."

"I know, man," Coop said. "I fuckin' know that. That leaves it to either me or Nerdly to break this fuckin' stalemate and keep us playing music and making money. Nerdly ain't willing to change his mind. I talked to him last night and he's as willing to go down with the ship as you and Matt are."

"Nerdly has a strong sense of what's right," Jake said.

"Yeah," Coop said, "and so do I. And what's right is keeping the band playing and getting our asses into that recording studio and out on tour. That's why I've decided to be the one to put an end to this shit."

"What do you mean?" Jake asked, although he had a pretty good idea. He prayed he was right.

He was. "I'm changing my vote," Coop said. "I'll vote to kick Darren out and keep Charlie. That'll put it four to two in your favor, Jake. I hate like hell to do something like this to Darren. You don't have any fucking idea how much doing this hurts, what kind of a fuckin' asshole I feel like — but I'm gonna do it."

Jake breathed an imperceptible sigh of relief. "You're sure about this, Coop?" he asked. "Have you really thought this thing through?"

Coop nodded. "I've been up all goddamn night thinking it through," he said. "Like I said, it's the right thing to do."

"Have you told Matt yet?"

"No," Coop said. "You're the first one I've told. I was kind of hoping you'd try to talk me out of it."

"Unfortunately, I can't do that," Jake said. "I think you're doing the right thing and I applaud you for the courage it took to change your mind on this."

"Yeah," Coop said sourly. "I get lots of fuckin' applause, don't I? But it ain't the applause that keeps me from going bankrupt, is it? It's making records and going out on tour."

Jake nodded in respect. Sometimes it was easy to think of Coop as just a dumb drummer, a marijuana addicted conspiracy theory freak with a borderline paranoid disorder. But every once in a while he came up with something pretty profound. "That's true, Coop," Jake told him. "That's very true."

"I need to tell Matt," Coop said. "And I need to tell him today — as soon as possible."

"Yeah," Jake said. "You'll need to do that."

"I want you to go with me."

Jake looked at him, his mind already trying to formulate excuses for why he couldn't or shouldn't be there for that conversation. He was unable to come up with even a single one. Slowly, he nodded. "All right," he said. "Why don't we have breakfast and then give him a call? We'll go over there before noon."

Matt was spending most of his days and nights these days at his rented Los Angeles penthouse instead of his mansion in San Juan Capistrano. This was primarily due to the loss of his driver's license and the fact that Buxfield Limousine Service — which the band held an endorsement contract with — could not drive him back and forth on the long trip on a daily basis. Jake and Coop, each in their own vehicles, pulled into the building's underground parking garage just before eleven o'clock that morning and parked. They got out and met near Jake's car. Silently, they walked to the elevators, both of them dreading the conversation they were about to embark upon.